Is the Nikon 1 a starter camera?

another question

Hi,

To begin with I know absolutely nothing about cameras but I saw an ad on TV for the new Nikon 1 camera....it's white but comes in other colours too.

Basically I would like to replace my OH's camera as it broke a couple of months ago, he used to be big into photography but the camera was a couple of years old as it was so I don't want to insult him by buying what would be a 'starter' camera. I liked the look of it and the ad was impressive.

When I looked it up online though I saw that there were two versions of it, a J1 and a J2. Whats the difference?

Anyone who has this camera and has an opinion on it's features, please share...thank you.

PopeBuckfastXVI

There's 4 versions
J1/V1 - Generation 1 of the camera
J2/V2 - Generation 2 of the camera

I'm not sure what the difference between the generations is, but it's probably a richer feature set/better autofocus/higher ISO sensitivity something like that, basically just newer and better.

The difference between the J and the V is that the J has only a large LCD screen on the back so you hold it up and away from your face like a normal point and shoot, the V has this screen as well as an electronic viewfinder which is a little glass window at the top with a screen in it that acts like a regular optical viewfinder from an SLR.

I wouldn't say it's a 'beginners' camera, I'd say both have a rich enough feature set in terms of manual control etc, but if your husband was big into photography I would guess that if size/weight is not an issue he would prefer a dSLR, as he may prefer an optical viewfinder, and also for the larger selection of lenses and larger sensor.

An entry level Nikon dSLR will also be a good bit cheaper than the 1 I'd say. Something like the d3000/d3100. If you could find out what camera he had that broke we could figure out the best thing to replace it.

Did he have a flickr account? If so you could link it and we could maybe figure out from the exif what camera he was using before, if you don't know.

KevinGossRoss

I've played with one of those before and it isn't great. Not if he had a DSLR before. Accessing ISO/Aperture takes a long time so if someone is into photography I wouldn't recommend it. It is a pretty camera, sure. But really not better than any SLR. Also, the sensor is tiny. Rather go for a canon 1000D/Nikon equivalent.

cnocbui

Olympus XZ-1 would probably be well worth a look, from the sounds of it. Also available in white.

IrishHomer

I see there is a pretty tempting over on todays Ibood for the Nikon 1 plus an extra lens http://www.ibood.com/ie/en/